Being ‘Grace-full’ When Personally Slandered

Posted by Pastor Pat on September 23, 2009

“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36

Perhaps one of the most painful experiences in life occurs when you are personally misrepresented or maliciously attacked through verbal assault.  Such things are sourced in either, the world, the flesh or the devil.  None of it is any good.  It will come through one of two channels either the saved or the unsaved.  Both are painful.  However to have the attack come from a brother or sister in Christ is self-destructive and bitter cannibalism.  Nowhere in the Scripture is such action justified.  I would like to answer two questions concerning personal slander.  First, what is slander?  And second, how are we to respond to slander?

First, what is slander? The English word comes from two Greek words.

The first is our English word “blasphemy.”

And the second is katalalia and means, “To speak against.”

Katalalia is found only twice in the NT (2 Cor. 12:20; 1 Peter 2:1).

2 Corinthians 12:20 For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults:

1 Peter 2:1 Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,

The noun form is used only once (Rom. 1:30).

Romans 1:30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

The word “Blasphemy” is used throughout the NT (Matt. 15:19; Mk. 7:22; Eph. 4:31; Col. 3:8; 1 Tim. 6:4).

Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:

Eph 4:31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

To slander someone is to speak evil of them.  It is to denigrate their name.

Such actions originate in the dark heart of man.   Slander has no winner.

All suffer, all pay.  This is why Paul exhorts the slanderer to put off their evil speech.  All of us have, at some point in time, felt the sting of the serpent’s tail.  He delights in accusing the people of God (Rev. 12:10).  Gossip is slander.

To talk about someone behind their back is an artificial spirituality.

There is no fruit of the Spirit called “gossip.”  It is simply another work of the flesh.  May God break us over our evil heart and tongue.  May He give us a true heart of confession (1 John 1:9).

It is one thing to know what slander is, it is another thing to handle it “grace-fully.”  This leads us to our second question, “how are we to respond to slander?”

There are two verses that form for me my mainstay as it relates to this area.

The first is found in Ephesians 4:31 and 32.

The second is that of 1 Peter 2:21-25.

When I am the object of slander I can either let it go or become what I hate.

Ephesians 4:31 tells me to put it off.  In its place I am to be kind, tender-hearted and forgiving.  Such actions are beyond me to comply.  That is why it is a “fruit of the Spirit.”  I can’t, but Jesus can!  Slander has the inherent power of making the recipient bitter, hard, and resentful.  But we must let the offense go.  Our forgiveness of the slanderer is to be unconditional and Christ-like.  We must always see ourselves as the greater debtor (Matt. 18:21-35).

The second passage in 1 Peter 2:21-25 gives us the example of our Lord Himself.  Verse 23 has become a guideline and pattern for me.

“And while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.”

I do not have to answer the charges raised against me by the slanderer or maligning “brother.”  “If God is for us, who is against us? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies;  who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” (Romans 8:31-34).  Can you not hear the ring of victory?

Oh what joy to rest in Him.  Nothing can touch you, nothing can bring you into bondage, . . . nothing.

Once the truth has set you free, you are free indeed (John 8:36)!

Continue to “dance in the ‘raign [rain + reign = raign]’ of grace.”

By Pastor Patrick J. Griffiths.  For more information see the Waukesha Bible Church series on Galatians.